Further to Fall
by A.Vehuel.A
Summary: (Previously TF-Observer) They are attracted to each other, to their secrets, despite their factions, despite the distance. On a ruined Cybertron during an endless war, Jazz finds himself reaching out and enjoying the unexpected company and collaboration of a silent mech, while around them the world falls apart.
1. Ch 1 Before the Fall

_**Notes:**_

I don't know what I'm doing.  
Seriously.  
The plot bunny caught me and didn't let me go, and here I am.

I will write short chapters because the POVs keep changing and I don't like putting them in the same chapter.

 **WARNING:**  
I don't really know anything about Transformers.  
All I know about it comes from the first 2 Bay Movies, and from reading around the fandom and looking around tumblr.  
For this reason, characters' descriptions are going to be a mess, and probably most of them not canon.  
I apologise in advance.

 **WARNING 2:**  
Since my knowledge of Transformers comes mainly from the fandom, I'm not sure 100% that everything I write about history and stuff comes from the canon or my imagination.  
It MIGHT happen that something of someone else's creation ends up here. If this happens, LET ME KNOW.  
I will remove stuff if possible and give credit where it's due.  
This I SWEAR.  
I don't STEAL.

* * *

 **Before the fall**

Night had slowly fallen over the dusty landscape of Cybertron. The two moons, slowly rotating around each other and obscuring the sun, cast their dim lights over the bustling city of Kaon, always and eternally busy and full of harried mechs.

Kaon, the city that never sleeps.

Kaon, where criminality and corruption ran freely in every street, uncontrolled and arrogant in their power.

Kaon, where mechs and femmes fought, bled and struggled just for a chance of survival, alone and forgotten by the Iaconian Council, the Head of the planet, and their 'leading' Prime.

Corruption.

At least in Kaon everyone knew the truth, knew who they were, knew what to expect from every mech they might cross in the streets, knew their places.

Corruption.

In the eastern part of the city the shadows moved. Covered from the moons' light by the towering shape of Kaon's Arena the doors leading from the dungeons to the streets opened, and just as silently closed. A mech moved, soundless steps and movements somehow at odds with the big frame and the hulking weight of his armor and weapons. It wasn't a small bot, not at all, but he managed to keep entirely to the shadows, no one noticing him sneak around the vendors and pleasure-bots littering the streets.

The mech crept towards the docking district, shining black and violet plates of armor dulled by dust and self-applied mud to camouflage the shimmering plating and blinking purple lines of bio-lights scattered over the sides of the abdomen, legs and wings.

He checked his internal chronometer, and entered the designated warehouse, sensors flared and alert to intercept vital signs and energon readings. Just one popped up, a familiar spark resonance being recognised by his processor and displayed with matching ID on his HUD.

His optics scanned the empty area, searching for the figure to match the beacon picked up by his extremely advanced scouting equipment. Movement shuffled to his right, and he zeroed in on the other mech, towering height too evenly camouflaged to his surroundings to be glimpsed by common bots.

"I've already placed white-noise devices and frequencies-interrupters around the perimeter, we can speak freely" vocalized the other mech, slipping from the shadows to penumbra, grey and green plating shifting and flaring. "Report."

The agent didn't bother to slip out of the shadows, merely settled against the wall, rough material scraping against toughened back struts. "Target: rapidly climbing up the Arena's hierarchy, gathering followers and support from peers and crowds."

The other hummed, the low vocalization rumbling from throat to chest and vibrating in the air, long and thoughtful. "Your position?"

"…managed to gain trust and companionship."

"What's your opinion?"

The agent didn't say anything for a while, processor spinning, trying to find another conclusion different from the one he had already formulated orns prior but coming up empty.

"Situation: dire."

The other huffed, a scuffed servo rubbing against a tired and old faceplate, marred by scars and discolorations.

"Is it possible to avoid a war?"

"…Negative."

Kup sighed, feeling all the vorns of his life pressing against his plating and shoulder panels, trying to crush him. He looked at his undercover agent, feeling sorrow, affection and responsibility battling against him.

"We can get you out now, and go back to Iacon. Your abilities will be great he-"

"Negative."

Kup snapped his mouth components shut with a quiet _clink_ , staring at the mech before him, foreboding and alarm crawling all over his cables and lines. "What do you me-"

"War: inevitable… and beneficial for Cybertron. Council: stagnant and corrupted, more occupied with power plays and posturing instead of caring for population, leaving mechs starving all across the planet. Sentinel Prime:… useless" the agent shifted, wings briefly unfolding from their previous tucked-in position behind his back to ruffle and flare sharply at his sides, displaying his agitation, before forcedly reigning control over them and returning them to their inexpressive positions. "More worried about losing his position than confronting the Council. Revolution: needed."

Kup stared sharply at his agent, knowing about the severity of those words and the danger they could provoke if heard by indiscrete audials. He also knew, with certainty and bone-deep tiredness, that they were true. The corruption of the higher classes and commanding circles had led Cybertron to ruin, from the Golden Age to the planet's darkest era. Change was needed, and even if he was the Chief of Security of the Council and the Primes, duty-bound to report insurrections and revolts, he was also Head of SpecOps, a department solely dedicated to _Cybertron_.

"…You think this… _Megatron_ will be what the planet needs?" he asked.

His agent stilled briefly, movements seen by him only because of the deep familiarity between the two of them, vorns of work to make them _know_ each other. "Megatron: strong and charismatic mech, speaks of freedom for lower classes and end of oppression. He will be followed, and needs someone to keep him on track. Things will change."

"But you don't know how."

"Cybertron: _needs_ change."

The two stared at each other.

"If you stay undercover…" Kup fell silent, sadness curling around his spark and making him so _tired_ , tired of seeing agents and friends and mechs he knew die and disappear and just be _gone_ , without no one but him to remember them and know of their sacrifices. "If you stay, you will be on your own. We don't know what will happen, uproar will destabilise _everything_. I don't even know if SpecOps will remain standing after all this. Pit, I don't even know if _I_ will survive, and I'm the only one who knows you are here, that you are SpecOps, that you are _loyal_. You will be _alone_ , and without chances of extraction if things go south."

The agent stayed silent, processor calm and in control, nothing to betray him. He had already made his decision orns before, and he knew the risks. He knew what was at stake – his life, his identity will never be the same, he will be forced to do things he will regret – but he was an agent. He was SpecOps. Duty was hardcoded inside him, and his loyalty to Cybertron required sacrifices from him.

"Affirmative."


	2. Ch 2 After the Fall

**Notes:**

Warnings are the same as the first chapter's.

I also realised I forgot to include the units of time I'm going to use, so:

Astrosecond: 1 secondo

Kilk: circa 1 minuto

Breem: circa 8 minuti

Joor: 1 ora

Orn: 1 giorno

Deca-Cycle: 10 giorni

Orbital Cycle: 1 mese

Stellar Cycle: 1 anno

Vorn: 83 anni

 **P.S.:** One things I hate about this website is that it's not versatile. I mean, this story should have like a billion of tags, and just thinking about trying to put them here makes my head hurt.

Seriously, if you want something done right, go to Archive of Our Own (I'm Vehuel over there). There are tags, relationships, and warnings added every time I post a chapter. It gives a more 360° outlook of the situation.

* * *

 **After the fall**

 _Sometimes he couldn't recharge._

Soundwave had watched, and waited, and climbed up the ranks of the Decepticons, aided by his friendship with Megatron, nurtured in the Arena, and his past as a 'gladiator'. He had seen the revolution begin, and the Council flounder under the reports of rebellion and unrest.

Change had come for Cybertron, and despite his allegiance to Kup and all that came with it, he was right in the middle of the action, directing the troops, exposing secrets powerful mechs wanted to keep secret and finding, one after the other, the weak points of the Councilmechs.

Then the new Prime.

When Orion Pax had become Optimus Prime, Sentinel had already fled and no one had heard from him for almost a vorn. The Royal Guard had scattered, the Council too frayed and frantic to provide a clear and determinate leadership to the guards.

When the AllSpark had nominated a new Prime, Soundwave had felt joy, and sadness.

Joy, because a new Prime had been born, and one he knew to be just. He had met Orion Pax by mistake, and the data clerk had been polite and respectful toward the mech everyone saw as a 'filthy and low-class gladiator'.

Sadness, because the Council had seized the opportunity and manipulated the new Prime, who found himself the new head of a broken Cybertron, surrounded by sharks and malevolent masks.

The Autobot had risen, believing in the propaganda, seeing the Decepticons as an evil faction who had destroyed their planet and its apparent peace – but Soundwave knew, the Decepticons knew, that Cybertron had been broken far before their revolution, starving mechs, femmes and sparklings dying in the streets, sparks snuffing out without care, and really, was it a surprise that the AllSpark, after nominating Orion a Prime, had decided to stop producing new sparks? How could it, bring new mechanisms to the world only to be tossed around and discarded like glitch-mice in the paws of cyber-cats?

Hope had been lost then.

The Decepticons were fighters, mostly composed by gladiators and mechs fighting and living in the pits, so they were accustomed to war and misery, it was everything they had known all their lives, but this also meant that they weren't coordinated, they didn't follow strategies. They were lone cyber-wolves, and when push came to shove they would abandon their comrades in a spark-beat if it meant saving their plates.

When the struggle to survive is everything you've ever known all your life, the most important thing for you is your spark, and your processor. The rest is secondary.

Soundwave could understand that. As a carrier-bot, he knew very well the effects the pull of bare instincts could have on the processor and logic unit, so he had known that this ragtag group of revolutionaries would fall apart.

He had tried, anyway, to lead them, to formulate battle plans and strategies easy to follow.

By the time the Autobots had won back Praxus, most of the Decepticons' troops had off-lined.

Vorns later, Soundwave sometimes asked himself why he bothered anymore.

The Decepticons were an army again only thanks to Starscream, and half the population of Vos, and Shockwave, with his drones, and Megatron had gone half mad, spewing around half-formed battle plans and delusions of grandeur and victory.

Nothing was left of the charismatic leader and gladiator he remembered.

* * *

War had gone on too long, and it had decimated 90% of the planet's population.

In the 197th vorn since the beginning of the war, the situation was stuck.

The Autobots had retreated to Iacon, the city-state fully barricaded and protected, and the Decepticons were based in Kaon, the old city their first and never-breached strong-hold all through the war.

Praxus had been destroyed a mega-cycle before.

Soundwave hadn't known.

It had been Shockwave's plan, and since the former-Councilmech and Soundwave shared the same position within the ranks, the other hadn't had the obligation to inform the Chief of Communications. Shockwave had gone directly to Megatron, and a few orns later, Soundwave had watched an entire city being obliterated in just a breem.

Just like that.

All of Praxus, gone.

For the first time since the mission that costed him his Voice, Soundwave broke down, carrier instincts going haywire just thinking about all the dead, all those _sparklings_.

No one saw him around for an orbital cycle.

* * *

After that, Soundwave just… followed the current.

Something had broken in him the day Praxus was destroyed. All this time, watching insanity taking over Megatron and the cause going pear-shaped, he had held on the faint hope that everything would go right. Megatron would come to his senses, and declare a truce. The Council was long gone, the old corruption all but disintegrated, they could start anew. The new Prime would listen, would make things right.

Praxus.

All those dead.

There was no redemption after that.

None.

Nothing could justify in his mind the slaughter of an entire city, the _genocide of a race_ , the almost casual way Shockwave had given the order to drop the bombs.

In the darkness of his quarters, the room lit up only by the golden light of his optics, face-mask discarded carelessly on the floor, Soundwave grieved.

Grieved for Cybertron, for the population, for Praxus.

He grieved for the Decepticons, and Megatron.

He grieved for the Autobots, and all those sparks who died without meaning.

He grieved for himself, for he was alone.

Kup had disappeared soon after the beginning of the war, and Soundwave suspected he had gotten off-world, or was hiding somewhere top-secret. He didn't know the fate of the other SpecOps agents of his division, they were kept secret from each other to prevent discovery.

Ravage, his only bonded symbiote, was gone. The old cyber-cat – so old, almost thrice Soundwave's already substantial lifespan, old as the temple of Primus sitting in the centre of Iacon, old enough to remember the Quintessons and the way Cybertronians had fought to gain their freedom – hadn't been approving of his plan to remain undercover in the Decepticons. She had called him glitched, and told him it was going to ruin him. She wasn't going to stay and see another master of hers die.

She had turned her back on him, and gone out the door, disappearing in the darkness of Kaon.

Soundwave hadn't seen her since. The bond was closed off, and cold.

He didn't even know if she was alive – but she was clever, and resourceful, and had survived wars and slavery and the death of four masters, not even Unicron himself would make her go off-line.

Soundwave was alone, behind enemy's lines, and didn't know what to do.

He had never felt so cold.

* * *

 _It began slowly, this fascination of his._

Soundwave was inside the system.

Part of his job inside HQ was to supervise communications and ensure security. This meant that even outside of the battlefield, he had to know _everything_.

The computer mainframe was at his digits, the cameras' streams could be pulled on the inside of his visor with just a thought and he had under control more sensors and security devices he could count at the drop of the helm.

For this reason, he felt immediately the intruder.

From his stationing in the emptiness of his personal office, he paused what he was doing. Sensors and pressure panels were pinging insistently on his HUD, but what caught his attention was what _wasn't_ being triggered.

Settling more comfortably against the back of the chair, wing-panels draping over the sides and spreading in faint interest, he accessed the cameras' feeds.

Nothing came up.

Soundwave's mouth components quirked up.

A brief check brought up a _brilliant_ piece of code running rampant in the system, disrupting feeds and deleting evidence as soon as it was created.

It had generated from one of the western doors to the compound, probably inserted within a door's commanding panel.

 _Someone had infiltrated HQ_.

Interest and curiosity and plain _giddiness_ battled inside him, making his spark rotate faster and release happier light pulses inside his spark chamber.

During the war, he had discovered a fair share of infiltrators or saboteurs, but every one of them had disappointed him almost immediately. They were skill-less, clumsy, and without training. Signs that the Autobots hadn't managed to build up again a worthy SpecOps department after the destruction of the last one and Kup's disappearance.

But this one. _This_ one…

Hadn't triggered anything. At all.

Sensors and pressure panels went off almost three, four times every orn. Be it glitch-mice, drones or decepticons roaming around, every check came up clean. Soundwave barely bothered every time, because every instance was backed up by cameras' feeds and _heat sensors_.

Every mechanism produced heat, be it a mini-bot, a seeker or a gestalt. Every engine produced heat waves, that interacted with the room's temperature around them.

This time, heat sensors weren't triggered.

Soundwave grinned openly behind his face mask, tracking the disturbance around the base.

The infiltrator seemed to be moving through the vents – small then, part of his processor whispered, and not clumsy at all, seeing as noise detectors weren't triggered – towards the control room, inching their way carefully but swiftly.

Experience. Grace. Confidence.

Wing-panels shivered in delight and lifted, the soft rustling and rattling noise filling the otherwise quiet room. Soundwave got to work, dismantling and tearing apart the code disrupting his cameras' feeds – but first he _saved_ a copy in his personal banks, because he hadn't seen such a _fine_ piece of code in vorns and wanted to commemorate the event.

The infiltrator arrived at the end of the air vent leading to the main control room, and through the now-functioning cameras Soundwave witnessed the air vent's cover being removed, soundlessly and efficiently.

A few astroseconds later, a small bot dropped out, flipping on his pedes gracefully and barely triggering the pressure sensors under him.

Polyhexian in frame, with a streamlined figure and just a little more height than a mini-bot but without the protuberant bumpers on chest-plates and thighs, the mech was painted matte black, blending easily in the darkness of the room. His optics were covered by an oblong visor glowing a soft light blue, resting above a small pointed nasal bridge, furrowed-in-concentration mouth components and a small oval chin.

Soundwave ran a search through the Autobot database for a mech sporting similar looks – the mech was extremely professional so far, and one of the first rules of infiltration was to _never go in with your original paint nanites_ – and settled down to watch the proceeding.

A breem later, the mysterious mech had gotten through a monitor's security, gotten the intel, and retreated inside the air vents, leaving the room spotless and without clues of external passage.

Another breem, and the infiltrator was out of the base.

In and out, in three breems. Without leaving clues. Without being seen.

His search pinged a result, quickly pulling up a file on his HUD.

The same face looked up at him from the still-image, the visor glowing a much stronger and deep blue, soft-looking mouth quirked up in a mischievous smile. From the bottom corner of the picture a black-and-white paintjob was barely visible.

The file was bare – and if that didn't scream SpecOps, beside the extremely competence of the agent, he would eat his own tenta-cables -, with only a city of supposed birth – Polyhex, as he had assumed from the frame-type –, Autobot reference – Prowl, Praxian, had brought him in the vorn after the Enforcer's own joining – and newly instated status of Third in Command.

Jazz.

Soundwave rolled the name in his processor, before vocalizing it in a soft exhale against his facemask, barely audible in the silent room, the vibration of the glyphs for _gracefulness_ and _ingenuity_ rumbling along his glossa.

He was truly and completely intrigued.

* * *

 **Notes:**

If you have questions, feel free to ask! Also, let me know what you thought!


	3. Ch 3 Toccata e Fuga

**Notes:**

I apologise for the shortness of this chapter, but I'm trying to follow a particular schedule in the story, so it might happen again to have shorter chapters or longer ones, depending on the thematic I'm treating.

It might come to your attention that the chapters are not following a strict time-line. You should be able to easily follow the main strand of events, but it will happen to find episode occurring in the past of the characters (NEVER in the future), or briefly before the main events.

If there are any questions regarding this topic, feel free to ask, I'll try to clarify eventual incomprehensions.

* * *

 **TOCCATA E FUGA**

 _Mistakes can change your life._

Jazz liked SpecOps.

Living in the streets had made him realize the value in making himself invisible, in blending in the shadows, in listening before speaking.

In the streets, being noticed was not ideal.

Being noticeable was even worse.

In the streets, bots disappeared without a trace. If they were pretty, if they cocked their hips just so, if their smile was alluring without even meaning to, they were gone.

Too late to go back.

Sometimes they resurfaced, working in pleasure-centres, optics dimming client after client, paint nanites dulling after vorns of having their plating hit, dented, gripped.

Others reappeared in ditches, bodies torn and scavenged for parts, entire lines of tubing and wires missing.

If you were nobody, your value resided in your hardware.

Without a familial unit, without friends, without caretaker or protector, Jazz learnt fast.

He kept to the shadows, listened, and learned.

To survive meant to be smarter, faster, swifter, and _invisible_.

Until he was caught.

One moment he was following a grey-and-green bot, and the next he was pinned against a wall, a thin but oh so sharp blade pressed against the major energon lines of his throat, body efficiently restrained and trapped.

The mech he had been following was watching him, faceplate inexpressive and almost relaxed, caution only visible in the narrowing of dark red optics and the carefully-restrained strength he could feel in the servos that were keeping him pinned.

"How long have you been following me?"

Jazz knew he had made a mistake.

The mech had seemed armless, same as the others filling the streets, but Jazz had noticed the details and seen the healthy sheen of his armor despite the dust covering it, the hardness in the plates that only came from a well-rounded alimentation of minerals and metals, and a steady access to fuel.

He should have realized that there was something more, but he had been _starving_ , too long without energon and metals and his frame was already falling apart, panels flaking and paint nanites faded and scratched, metal soft and cracking, internal repairs more concerned with keeping him alive than repair surface and cosmetic injuries.

A healthy mech meant healthy life-style, which lead to a steady job and _energon_ and _credits_.

"Just a couple of breems, I swear, I didn't see anything I won't say anything…" he babbled, panic rising and utterly destroying any kind of self-control. He trashed in the restraining grip of the other, barely moving at all under the crushing strength keeping him still, words falling from his vocalizer without him noticing because he knew he was in so _deep_ **_slag_**.

Spies, and snitches, and just plain annoyances died in the streets.

"Silence."

His thin mouth components smacked closed, vocaliser resetting a few times with a noisy grating sound – his gears were falling apart and dust had entered his frame and he needed to refuel so badly his energon tank was imploding – that filled the silence.

The mech was watching him with keen eyes, the earlier tension around them drifting away slowly. The weight keeping him pinned ended abruptly, but those strong servos were still maintaining their grip on his shoulder plates, denting the starved metal and straining the thin cables underneath, making Jazz wince and whine softly.

"You are young."

Jazz reset his optics, faint silver light – silver like bleached metal, like circuits and systems not getting enough nutrients to establish basic code-genetic differences between mechanism – trembling and flickering in his exhaustion and lack of energy.

"Yes sir."

"How young?"

"N-nine vorns, sir."

The mech didn't reply, staring at Jazz and not moving an inch.

"The problem, little one, is not you following me…" the other began, a slow grin – terrifying, horrible, full of dark promises and anticipation that made Jazz tremble and almost shed optical lubricant in fright – twisting his thin lips. "It's that I didn't _notice_."

Kup brought him home.

Three vorns later, Megatron and his revolution set Cybertron ablaze.

* * *

 _Things were going to the pit._

Jazz refused to give in and panic, his training helping him restrain the frantic beats and rolls of his scared spark. He was stuck in the air vents of the Decepticons' HQ, in a section he'd never been in before, and the schematics they had managed to download just a mega-cycle prior seemed to be wrong.

He was stuck there, in that tight and narrow space, in the darkness, with enemy mechs walking up and down the corridor under him. He couldn't go back, and he didn't know where going forward could bring him.

A rattle came from the air vents around him, and Jazz held his fans still, making them cease the already-inaudible ventilations they were keeping up.

A voice faintly came from behind him. "I'm just going to have a look. The cover of this vent is loose, it's better to check it out."

Panic spread through him, making his armor suddenly release the clamping position it was holding for the past joors to rattle noisily. Jazz inhaled sharply a mouthful of dusty air, struggling to still the panicky motions of his plates and return them to their previous motionless and soundless position.

"Did you hear that?!" came from behind him.

 _This is how I off-line_ , Jazz thought, processor spinning and energon freezing in his veins.

 **Go forward, then take the first turn right.**

Jazz startled, barely able to avoid jerking his servos against the narrow walls of the air vent, eternally grateful for the habit of off-lining his vocalizer every time he went on this kind of mission. A scream had built in his throat tubing, now choked off.

A voice had spoken in his processor.

 _A voice had spoken in his processor._

He reached a new level of panic, frame overheating from the activity of his frantic spark, coolant building all over his armor plates and almost dripping over the air vent's floor in a frantic attempt at cooling his frame.

 **Open those fans of yours, ventilate, then go forward and take the first turn right.**

Jazz barely jerked again, and struggled to open his cooling vents, cringing from the sound they made while they expelled warm hair from his protoform. His chronometer ticked at him, mocking him for all the time he was wasting, and the clanking from the portion of the air vent behind him was growing noisier by the klik.

Voice or not voice, he had to move forward.

The trek ahead seemed endless to his shaken processor, frantic spark still hammering against the crystal of his spark chamber, the sensation making his chest-plates ache with phantom pain.

At the blue light of his visor he saw the air vent sharply curve and open to his right, and he mindlessly turned, his processor instinctively deciding to _trust_ that voice coming from nowhere, from inside his processor, from where it _couldn't_ come because his head was his own and sure as the pit he hadn't been hacked _damn it_.

He continued forward, shuffling on his elbows, knees and pedes trying to find traction to help his movements.

 **Take the second turn left and go forward until you encounter an opening on the floor. Slip through, as silent as possible.**

Fans spinning, the coolant dripping from his faceplate was making his grip slip on the smooth surface. His armor struggled to stay clamped to his protoform, the heat inside exhausting him further.

Jazz held on, and moved forward. Alerts started appeared on his HUD, bright and demanding his attention, glyphs for _overheating_ and _imminent shut down_ blinking frantically at his optics.

First opening on the left.

He continued forward, weak and exhausted, _fright_ and _panic_ and _terror_ weighing him down.

He moved on.

Second opening on the left.

He turned, his armor scraping noisily against the sharp corner, definitely leaving black paint scrapes on the plain grey metal. The sound travelled along the tunnel, and the movement of pursuit behind him reached again his audials, making whining static spit and crackle from his struggling-to-activate vocalizer.

The floor opened up suddenly under him.

Jazz slipped and fell.

Darkness welcomed him in statis.

* * *

 **Notes:**

I hope you liked this one!

The second scene is a particular favorite of mine, I just loved writing it! (together with the second one in the next chapter, you'll see!)

Anyway, I'll go hide in a corner, I'll resurface next week!

V.


	4. Ch 4 Metronome

_**Notes:**_

Fuck, I just realised I actually forgot to post this chapter here last week!

(If you check on Ao3, I actually just posted chapter 5, then I came here to do the same and realised ch.4 never came out. For this, I apologise, I really HATE this site and how it works).

Anyway, enjoy! (and I apologise again)

* * *

 _ **Metronome**_

 _Maybe it was time…_

"Have you considered the idea that you might be lonely?"

Soundwave didn't startle, or jump, or react in any way. He had felt the other approach him from behind, cloaked in shadows not even the moons' light could penetrate.

"…Query."

Megatron came over, dark grey armor barely glinting in the dark, pedes moving gracefully over the rough metal of the roof, tiny scratching sounds seeming so loud in the silence and quiet of Cybertron around them.

The planet seemed dead.

Soundwave repressed a shudder.

"How long has it been since we last spoke?"

Soundwave lifted his gaze from the darkness ahead and looked sideways, Megatron's glowing red eyes giving him a visual target for his screaming sensors. The gladiator wasn't looking at him, face angled upwards, watching the slow rotation of the twin moons.

"Megatron: requested Soundwave presence in today's meeting."

His vocalizer felt scratchy as always, a little dusty from the particles littering the air around them, and he made a note to take out and clean the filter as soon as he got back to his quarters.

"You know what I mean."

Soundwave turned his entire body towards his Commander, the movement making cold hair swirl against the edges of his exposed face, tickling the edges of his jaw and the cabling of his bare throat. Red eyes met golden, both of them seemingly bringing up old memory files to review, of clashes and wounds and energon splattering on the dirty ground of the Arena, but also quiet nights spent on the same berth, quietly reading or making plans, basking in the other's fields and talking. Just talking.

 **The war took his toll on us.**

"And made strangers of ourselves."

Megatron's claws lifted, slowly and carefully in the encompassing darkness around them – not one of them had bothered to turn on IRT* or IT**, trusting their external sensors to comb their surroundings for intruders, and all their optics could pick up was a vague outline of each other's armor -, and settled on his shoulder, curling and gripping without even scratching the paint, the weight oddly comforting despite Soundwave's dislike of social and physical interactions.

Soundwave shuttered his optics, not quite knowing what to say or do. In 200 vorns of war they had drifted apart, Megatron's mania and his own rising hopelessness had twisted and pulled at the bond they once shared.

He felt like they didn't know each other anymore.

Distantly, Soundwave wondered if he ought to be resentful. He had forsaken his whole life, the few mechs he loved, to follow a revolution that had burned itself to the ground, bringing down with it a whole planet.

He wondered if he should _hate_ Megatron. But looking at the other, he knew he couldn't.

It had been his choice. He had thought that for once he could accomplish something on his own, something he had chosen, something he _believed_ in.

He had been mistaken.

Megatron was still watching him, red eyes roaming along his rarely-exposed face, and Soundwave still didn't understand why he had been approached.

They didn't partake in each other's company, these vorns.

Tentatively, he relaxed the iron-tight control he kept on his field – how long had it been since he last relaxed it, how long since it extended away from his panels, since he had _felt_ another's touch so acutely in his circuits without interfacing – and probed the air around him, carefully hiding a wince – the generators were sparking inside him, vorns of extremely close contact had almost made them incapable of stretching and reaching outside the closeness of his own armor.

Megatron's field was looser than his own, reaching almost an inch outside his plating, and at first contact seemed troubled, rolling and storming with emotions and something else th-

The hand on his shoulder tightened painfully, claws digging in his armor with a faint _screech_ , startling him and making him pull his field back abruptly.

"Not tonight" the other dictated, withdrawing his own field and moving back a step, putting more distance between the two of them. He didn't seem angry at the apparent intrusion, more like… distant, and sad.

 **I apologize** ** _._**

"It's fine, we'll talk about me some other orn. I'm actually worried about you."

Soundwave startled, taken by surprise.

"You are always alone. I understand our faction is not exactly what we thought it would end up being, and we'll talk about this later, but you've been withdrawing and isolating yourself for a long time, and I'm worried."

Megatron's voice had lowered the more he talked, and he seemed hesitant, almost uncomfortable. Soundwave knew he was not the most social of mechs – he had not survived that long just throwing around trust and secrets after all – and could understand the awkwardness of the situation, but that obvious unease between them stung him sharply.

It was testament of the detachment and distance that had come between them.

 **I'm fine** ** _._**

"You're not. I can see it. You're stressed and exhausted and just plain sad. I can tell, and so can the troops. As your Commander, I can't let my TIC behave like this. As your friend, if you still can call me that, I'm worried." Megatron's fans let out a puff of air, and the heavy mech turned back towards the door leading to the inside of the building.

"I'll leave you to it."

Soundwave was left on the roof, staring up at the stars.

* * *

[*InfraRed Thermography (heat vision)]

[**Image Intensification (night vision)]

* * *

 _...to come out and play._

Soundwave was ready.

The moment the Autobot dropped down the opening in the air vent circling one side of the ceiling he moved to replace the hole he had made, the metal panel clicking sharply in place to close the temporary access to the room.

The other had hit the floor with a loud _clang_ , small body half-turned to the side and visor dark, apparently in statis. Soundwave didn't dare to move for almost a breem, fans held almost still to match the silence of the room and trying to catch any sound of someone approaching to investigate the noise.

No one had heard, apparently.

He slowly relaxed, plating loosening slightly from its protoform-tight previous position, and turned towards his last-klik guest.

The Autobot was still on the floor, unmoving, matte black armor completely covered in coolant and cooling vents stuttering with a grating sound, heat emanating from a hard-running engine.

Soundwave frowned, a touch of worry making him approach without care, and he extended a servo, black clawed digits coming to rest over the flexible plates covering the flank of the mech in front of him.

The other was hot. Too hot.

Soundwave swiftly opened a little panel on his own wrist, uncoiling a small cable, and moved towards the black nape in front of him, one single slim digit applying pressure on an almost imperceptible slit to uncover the other's medical port. Within an astrosecond he had established a connection, the port's heat uncomfortably scalding around the tip of his cord.

Firewalls awaited him, blocking immediately his access while trying at the same time to highjack his connection to plant a malware in his own processor, a move he had been expecting and managed to block at once. Instead of trying to crack the extremely reinforced firewalls – SpecOps' issued, strands of code constructed like barbed wire, with the objective of stopping any kind of hacking attempt at any cost, even the owner's own processor – he found the medical protocol, scrolling quickly through the lines until he found the identification slot, designed to allow minimal and controlled access to certified medical officers in case of injuries.

He provided his old medical code, briefly wondering if it would be accepted – it was severely outdated after all, and not exactly legal, but Kup had insisted on him having a certain level of medical preparation and the underground's clinic they went to had provided the certificates and codes necessary for identification – but he had to wait only half a klik.

Information scrolled down his visor, describing the physical status of the patient, and red sections jumped to his attention, blinking glyphs screaming _emergency shut-down_ and _critical overheating_. Soundwave frowned behind his mask and searched through the report, trying to pin-point the cause besides the clearly clogged-with-dust vents sputtering – they were highly efficient pieces of mechanics after all, and only a huge amount of dust and particles would have managed to block ventilation to the point of overheating so badly.

Nothing inside the mech's systems seemed to be responsible, but the Autobot was becoming critically hot to the touch – a sharp stab of pain originating from his medical cord made him flinch – and trying to bring down his temperature wouldn't work without removing the cause of such overheating.

A ping came from his comm system, trying to get his attention, but he showed it aside, letting it go unanswered, golden optics narrowed urgently on the inside of his visor, knowing that with every klik that passed the situation would deteriorate even further.

Frustration made him shift on his pedes, back struts popping from his crouched position over the other's mech, and he dismissed the medical window to a corner of his visor, gaze flying over the Autobot's plating.

If it was not an internal system's problem, it must be coming form an outside source.

Everything seemed normal, besides the coolant liberally dripping to the floor – he absently remembered the _low coolant levels_ glyph he had noticed earlier and made a note to provide the other with a few refills to compensate – and the gritting and sputtering sounds. Optics traced a finely shaped helm, off-lined visor, sharp face and slender neck, going down to a pitch-black chest-plate and servos, finely interlocked slender plates forming the sides and abdomen an-

What was that?

He leaned forward, carefully turning the Autobot more on the front, exposing the posterior struts and aft. In the small of the mech's back, nestled between two major panel struts, was a little oblong bump, seemingly part of the armor surrounding it.

A closer look revealed magnetic clamps around the edges, keeping it still and stuck to the plating.

Soundwave traced the edge with tip of a sharp claw, and a bit of discharge hit him, a little spark appearing in a flash.

Whatever it was, it seemed to be fried and not working properly.

He braced his left servo against the upper back plates and with the other hooked the tips of his claws along the edges of the device, gripping it tightly, before yanking it away sharply. The contraption came off with a soft _pop_ , leaving behind just an oval of cleaner armor that had avoided the dust of the air vent.

A few astroseconds later the other's black armor loosened and shifted with a clattering sound, and the previously half-opened vents opened all the way, filling the room with the racket of fans spinning to their highest setting, trying desperately to dump heat outside and away from fragile protoform and working engine.

Soundwave brought up the medical window again. The Autobot was still dangerously hot, but the temperature instead of rising had stabilised, and seemed to be dropping slowly thanks to fans finally working properly again. He still checked around, but apart for a few singed wires – auto-repair would take care of it – and low levels of coolant and energon everything seemed to be in order.

He considered the mech in front of him. He was dusty, still too hot to touch, and clearly exhausted. Before closing definitely the connection between their processors, Soundwave induced a light medical statis, that would wear off in more or less a joor.

A ping sounded again from his comm system. Disengaging the cord's jack from the medical port and rolling slowly and carefully the warm cable, Soundwave checked the ID attached to the comm line trying to reach him.

Barricade.

::Soundwave here.:: he acknowledged, tucking the cable back to its housing and closing the panel, doing the same to the other's opening.

::Soundwave sir, there's been a level 1 breach.:: answered the scout immediately, voice low and straight to the point.

Level 1 breach meant that no one had definite proof of a breach, but something seemed suspicious enough to be reported to a superior officer.

::Explain.::

::Blackout noticed a loosened air vent cover in one of the corridors of the south wing of the compound. He also says that when he looked inside the vent, he heard noises, so he sent inside a drone, whose recording however came out inconclusive.::

::Your thoughts?::

Soundwave heard a snort down the line.

::Apart from Blackout trying to sneak out to avoid his duties? I think he had too much high-grade too soon in the orn, but I thought to bring the matter up to you before taking any decision.::

Soundwave hummed, looking down at the Autobot in front of him. Dismissing the matter would only bring suspicion on him and his department, despite the unreliable witness – who, this time, was completely and perfectly right on there being an intruder, but no one needed to know that.

::Follow protocol, initiate level 1 lockdown and search the building with the drones.::

::Yes sir.:: Barricade seemed to hesitate over the line. ::What of Blackout?::

::Take his statement, then report him for whatever he's high on this time. Also, when you have time bring to my room a cube of energon mixed with mercury and zinc.:: he ordered, considering the damages of the mech in front of him and deciding on some minerals that might help his auto-repair work faster.

::..sir?:: came the hesitant inquiry.

::Are you questioning me?:: he asked casually, sliding his servo around the joints of the legs and the back of the Autobot and carefully lifting him off the ground.

Soundwave dismissed the flustered apologies coming down the line, frowning down at the mech in his servos, resting still in statis against the glass panel of his docking area. For his height and type, the Autobot seemed way below the estimated weight he should be. Still frowning, Soundwave moved towards the washracks, sending a last message to his underling before closing the comm line.

::… make it two.::


	5. Author's Note

**Author's Note:**

After much pondering and swearing at this website, I decided to stop updating this story here.

If you're still interested, you can find my profile at Archive of Our Own under the name Vehuel and this story under the name Further to Fall.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but I've been struggling with this site for ages and I'm finally sick of it.

V.


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